


Love and Rhetoric (Without the Blood)

by fandomfan



Category: Actor RPF, British Actor RPF, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead RPF
Genre: First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-12
Updated: 2010-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-06 05:09:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandomfan/pseuds/fandomfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim and I are drunk. Not properly drunk, but a few bottles of wine with dinner drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Rhetoric (Without the Blood)

**Author's Note:**

> Gratitude and much appreciation go out to Perhael for excellent beta services. Story takes place during filming for RAGAD. Feedback is much treasured.

Tim and I are drunk. Not properly drunk, but a few bottles of wine with dinner drunk. We're not falling over, but then again, neither are we very sure footed heading down the hall. We're swerving a little, wavering a little. And everything is funny. Our dinner conversation has been liberally peppered with dialogue from the film, and never have we found Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to be more amusing lads.

Really, we're probably drunker than we should be with an early call time tomorrow, but a nightcap awaits in Tim's hotel room, and at the end of the night I can manage to swerve and waver three doors further down to mine. I know I'm drunker than I should be when the thought of _not _going back to my room at the end of the night refuses to submit to its habitual silencing.

Tim and me like that is a course of action highly unlikely to be explored anywhere outside my own head. But my slightly-too-drunk body doesn't seem to understand that right now. Instead I'm having a difficult time focusing on anything but the way Tim's shirt collar is tucked under his jacket on the right side and pulled out on the left and on how my hands twitch at the thought of reaching out and smoothing that collar open on his chest. I remind myself: highly unlikely.

Tim tries unsuccessfully three times to get the timing of the key card and the door handle. I take the card from him, shaking my boozy head clear of highly unlikely scenarios. "This is interesting," I say to the door mechanism in my best Rosencrantz as I get it right on the first go and the two of us collapse laughing into the room.

Nightcaps are poured, and I sit on the sofa while Tim tosses his jacket aside and claims one of the chairs. As it often does in our more inebriated moments, talk quickly turns to our longest running in-joke: the pathetic failure that would be our alter-egos trying to chat people up. We find this endlessly amusing. My bit is usually uncomprehending responses to bad pick-up lines. "My sign of what, exactly?" "Now that you mention it, my legs _are_ tired, but as to running through your mind *pause* I can't recall." "No, I don't come here often, but then, often is rather a relative matter, isn't it? What is often to one may be quite infrequent to another." Etcetera etcetera.

Tim's bit is to talk so much logic that any potential interested party would be bored to tears and walk away. And he's in brilliant form at the moment.

"One," Tim declares in full-on syllogising Guildenstern. "Touch, being one of the five senses, is a cardinal form of interaction with the external. Two," he ticks off on his fingers. "Interaction with the external is undertaken in an attempt to know and claim unknown territory. Therefore, we touch with the intent to claim, to make things ours."

He's laughing, and I'm laughing, and when I come out with "If you were mine, I'd touch you _so_ well" it's still seventy-five percent unnamed bar patron attempting dreadfully to pull Guildenstern. But it's twenty-five percent… not. I'm a little too drunk to keep that twenty-five percent from bleeding through, and Tim is apparently a little less drunk than that, because he seems to have noticed my percentage problem. He's looking at me oddly now, and even though we're both still laughing, the tone has changed.

"Huh. Guess I can't hold my liquor like I used to, eh?" I try, grinning wryly and holding up my empty glass. But if there's one thing about Tim, it's that he's not one to beat about the bush. Generally I quite like that about him. Right now I like it a bit less.

"Gaz? What's that supposed to mean?" Tim asks me seriously.

"What? That I can't hold my liquor like I used to? Guess it means I'm getting old or out of practice or—"

"Not that. The other." Like I said, no beating about bushes.

"Means I'm a drunken idiot s'what it means," I mumble, at which Tim barks a laugh.

"Not arguing there, but I'm also going to get a real answer out of you, and you know it, so quit shamming." This is why I like Tim so much. No one is getting away with any nonsense where he's concerned, and he's not a girl about it. S'pose that's the point in the first place, isn't it?

"It means," I state very quietly but very clearly to my empty glass on the coffee table, "that I want in your trousers."

Tim guffaws. Not quite the reaction I'd expected. "Well, that's a bit ridiculous, innit?" he splutters at me. "I mean- Well- That's just- What the fuck, Gary?!" Mostly he seems amused and taken aback. Not angry or offended or afraid. Just laughing his head off at my expense. Not much difference there, really.

Bizarrely, it's sort of nice, that even this isn't that different than normal. Like in spite of everything I could still look him in the eye and laugh with him, and he'd still treat me like a partner in crime. Like an entertaining sidekick. Like—if you'll pardon my intoxicated sentimentalizing—a Rosencrantz to his Guildenstern.

"Yeah. Sick in the head, me. What could I possibly be thinking? Must be utterly mad to want you." Our regular joking verbal thrust and parry is apparently (thankfully) good for even the most awkward occasions.

"But you do anyway, don't you, you loon?" Tim smiles indulgently at me.

"Mm," I affirm, shrugging one shoulder. "No accounting for taste."

"Stark raving sane," he says. Then he looks at me for a minute, stands up from his chair, and shrugs with a bit of a dare in his eyes. "I'm game."

I laugh but don't move, because all teasing aside, Tim likes me, but I doubt he wants to shag me, and I do actually want to shag him quite a lot.

"Go right ahead," Tim says, and at my skeptical face he shrugs again and says rather bluntly, "What? Can't say I _never _thought about it."

My skeptical face remains. Tim, not surprisingly, laughs at me.

"Come on. After all this time in all our rehearsals and shooting and over all the dinners and drinks and late nights, how could I not have at least _thought _about it?"

And yeah, all right, I get what he's saying, but I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop, because if he's thought about it, how could I have had no idea? Trust me, I've had _no _idea. Given our patterns, this is much more likely Tim taking the piss and hiding it like a good, talented actor than it is anything... else. Which means the second I make another move, he'll have got me good and he'll be howling on the floor. So I don't make a move, and for a minute we just stay there in a silent game of chicken, waiting to see who blinks first. I'm damned if it'll be me.

But it doesn't seem like it's going to be Tim blinking either. Actually, his eyes are open the whole time he's stepping around the edge of the coffee table and sitting down next to me on the sofa and… Tim is kissing me. And not any "Here's a lark" buss, either. No. Tim is _really_ kissing me. With warm, soft lips and his hands on the sides of my face and oh!

They say you shouldn't look gift horses in the mouth, but I can't seem to stop staring at Tim's as he pulls back and smiles. For the moment, I'm too floored to really do anything, but when Tim stands and holds out his hand to me and says, "Come here, nutter," I take it and follow him across the room to stand by the bed.

There's more kissing then, and in a blatant show of bravado and jest, Tim pulls his shirt off over his head and winks at me.

It helps to suddenly realize that this, too, is not all that different from our normal interaction. We've a new game to play, and I'm more than prepared to take part in this one, so I respond by arching an eyebrow and unbuttoning my shirt.

He puts a suggestive hand on one cocked hip and toes his shoes off so he's barefoot.

I blow him a kiss and unbuckle my belt.

But Tim gets the final one-up when he steps closer and lays his hands flat on my bare chest inside my open shirt. I go very still and hear the echo of Tim's earlier Guildenstern. _We touch with the intent to claim, to make things ours_. At the moment, it doesn't seem like a joke.

"You're such a skinny thing, Gaz," he says as he pushes my shirt off my shoulders and lets it fall to the floor. He means it to mock, I can tell, but he also looks... Well, he looks _hungry_ standing there staring at my body. My heart beats very loudly in my ears.

"Oh, come off it. You know you want this," I tease him, turning showily in a circle. A semi-circle, really. I get stopped halfway round when Tim presses up against my back and links his arms around my waist.

"I do, actually" he says earnestly. "I really do." And he does. I can feel it in his body against mine. The man doesn't do things by halves. Lord knows we haven't crossed this line before, but now that the line's crossed, he's full steam ahead. Points to Tim.

Oh, and many many more points to Tim as he rubs up against me and unzips my flies. But at this point a sense of perverse pride kicks in. Hell if I'm going to let him get the jump on me in this. I'm the one who's done all the unrequited girly torch-carrying, so it should damn well be me that gets first trouser-opening privileges. Tim doesn't seem to object when I turn around to unfasten his trousers and reach my hand into his shorts and around his cock. His rakish grin goes a little slack.

I speak very low in his ear and take up a slow rhythm with my hand. "You know, for someone who finds this whole thing... What was your word? Ridiculous. For someone who finds this whole thing ridiculous, you're taking to it quite quickly. I'm not so sure your heterosexuality can take this beating, pun fully intended. The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

"That's- That's not from our play. That's- the other. And I'd think you'd be- oh- _quite_ clear right now that I'm not a lady." I have to say, if there's anything better than friendly mockery with Tim, it's friendly mockery with Tim while I'm palming his cock. It's downright hot is what it is. In all the ways I imagined this playing out, I never once thought it would be _funny_. But it is. It is in the best possible way, because it's Tim and me the way we always are together, and yes, I find that an _incredible_ turn-on.

So I keep up the stroking, and Tim runs his hands over my shoulders and down my back and generally all over me in a restless, distracted kind of way until he sorts himself out just far enough to coordinate both kissing and pushing my trousers and pants down so they fall at my ankles. He hasn't sorted himself enough, though, to realize I've still got socks and shoes on. I have to laugh at his confused face and twitching hands as he tries to deal with the obvious and simultaneous warring impulses to touch me, take off my shoes, keep kissing, AND stand back and just _look_ at me. "Looks like that's put a spoke in your wheel," I say drolly.

He glares at me and comes back with, "Looks like you've got your own spoke to deal with, there," and he positively leers at my prick, which is rather attentive to the proceedings.

"I'd rather deal with yours, if you don't mind," I leer right back, and I push his trousers and his shorts down so they fall and he can step neatly out of them, as he's already removed his shoes. On the whole, it all has a great deal more grace and panache to it than his attempt at getting me naked. I make sure to tell him so.

"If you're still able to use words like 'panache,' I'm not doing this right," Tim says.

"Well, come here and do it better, then," I tell him, removing the socks and shoes I have by now untied. I step out of my pile of clothes, and am immediately tackled to the bed by 11 stone of growling, aggressive, fantastic Tim Roth. We roll a bit and grapple for position, but the exercise is notably less playful than normal, which I'm sure has to do with all the direct skin contact. Which is _good_ and soon settles into touching and kissing and panting and other enjoyable gerunds. _Exceedingly _enjoyable. Particularly when I roll us so I'm lying stretched out over Tim's entire body, connected. all. over.

Humor is still here, but it's taken a backseat, because my blood is singing with this, and my skin feels over-hot and two sizes too small. I kiss Tim furiously. Intently. And he moans and kisses back, sliding his hands over my back and pulling at me. I slip my hand back down to his cock and stroke him again, and he makes a sort of choked-off sob into my mouth, which is just... _yes_.

It's heat and friction and sweat and _god, so human_. And it's Tim. _Tim_. And it's fucking _glorious_.

"Let- Let me- Ah!" Tim says against my shoulder, and starts to reach down between my legs.

"Don't have to," I assure him.

"Shut up. Oldman, you and a lot of alcohol have got me in a very- fuck- open frame of mind right now." He closes his eyes for a minute, losing the thread as my fingers slide back down and then up. "Since you're the one who's been- nngh- been after this all along, it seems a bit hypocritical to- Christ!- stop me when I want to get my hands on your cock."

I shiver from head to toe, and my hips jerk into him involuntarily. "Fine. Not stopping you," I hiss, and I don't.

"Like this?" he asks as he follows my rhythm with his hand.

"Yeah. Yeah, _just_ like that," I say, with a terribly embarrassing grunt. Tim laughs. Predictable. But his hips circle into my hand and he pulls me in closer with his free arm.

"Do you really want this?" I ask him, because somehow the whole thing is still unbelievably surreal to me.

"What the hell do you think?" he laughs, exaggerating his hips in a way that would be comical but for the fact that it makes him do this positively indecent moaning noise that cuts off his laughter. I grin

"Does it feel good?" I speed up my stroking.

"Of course it fucking well does." He sounds gratifyingly desperate.

"Statement. One-love," I say into his neck, and we're laughing again. Giggling a little. Stupidly. Like schoolgirls afraid of getting caught. But we're not going to get caught, and my highly unlikely course of action is in fact happening, and I'm in bed with Tim's cock in my hand for chrissake! And more even than that, Tim is coming apart under me. He's arching and gasping and returning the favor VERY nicely so that I'm arching and gasping right back at him. He calls my name as he starts to come, and that puts me over. I'm not focused enough to kiss properly, so I just press my mouth against his and fall. When we've both caught our breath, we look at each other and are silent for a moment. And then we laugh.

 

  
{}{}{}

 

Later, Tim asks "How long…?" and trails off, staring up at the ceiling.

"How long what?" I prompt him when it doesn't seem like he's going to finish.

"How long have you wanted this?" He's not looking at me, but his arm around my shoulders is solid and warm.

"Wanted this or wanted you?"

"How long have you wanted me, then?" I think he's actually blushing.

No point in being cagey now. "Years. Since _Meantime_," I tell him.

"Statement. One-all," Tim says, but very softly, and his face when he turns to look at me is serious and sober. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"What good would it have done me?"

"Didn't I tell you earlier that I'd thought about it?"

"On rare and purely hypothetical occasions, yes?"

"And if I told you it was a bit more frequent than that?"

"If you told me that, should I believe you?"

"Why wouldn't you?"

"Do you really expect I'd have believed you were interested and not just having me on?"

"_I_ believed _you _tonight, didn't I?" He sweeps his free arm around, taking in the bed and our piles of discarded clothes on the floor.

"You're sure you weren't just motivated by an excess of alcohol?"

"Does an excess of alcohol really make anyone act completely against his wishes?"

"Rhetoric. Two-one," I say, and he smiles but doesn't quite drop the subject.

"Really, Gary. I wish you'd said. Or, I don't know. I wish I'd known or… It just doesn't seem fair somehow."

"Fair to you or fair to me?" I ask him.

"Does it matter?" he shrugs and is quiet, not really waiting for an answer. We just lie there for a few minutes in lassitude and silence.

After a while, though, I can't keep still. I'm sticky and sweaty and need some sleep. I lift up onto one elbow looking at him. "Tim, should I…?" I gesture vaguely toward the door out to the hall.

We're not laughing anymore. No more witty Stoppard repartee. He looks at me inscrutably. My proverbial heart is in my proverbial throat and probably in my eyes, too, because Tim sees something that makes him smile and say, "Stay."

It takes a minute before I'm sure I can speak, and then I grin at him and kiss him quickly on the jaw. "Statement. Three-one and game," I say, and we laugh the last of the night's laughter and settle in to sleep.

 

  
END


End file.
